How far into the patch did you reach that point? 3.3 went on for a while to put it mildly.

I remember PuGing the first wing the day it went live. My gear wasnt even that great mostly stuff from that ToC 5 man heroic and some JP gear. Wasnt in full ToGC 25 gear or anything like that. I still laugh and dont understand how people could never beat Saurfang. ICC was a joke. If 100% of people that stepped foot into ICC never killed the LK then there are far more bads in this game than I thought. Its one thing if you never did ICC cause you didnt like raiding. But if you killed the first boss you should have had no problem killing every boss after that. Normal mode might as well have been a 5 man especially once the buff maxed out.

As usual it is how you define "casual". You attribute it to farmville, Pokemon and dailies giving valor. If you do 50 dailies, level several battlepets to 25 and get exhalted with all Tillers in the shortest amount of time...are you still casual?

On the other hand, a handful of guilds have beaten all HM raidbosses and could now chose to really cut down their playing time. Yet you consider them hardcore?

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

... there are lots of different types of players, with different amounts of time to play, and different tastes for the content and difficulty and time commitment they want to give to any of those pieces of content. The person that plays for an hour or so a few times a week is playing the same game as the person that plays five hours every night.....

So, you think the game should be catered for hardcore players only? Some people don't want to stress about raiding on X night and having to farm for X consumable for X raid, many people would rather have fun, LFR gear is good enough for that sort of thing.

In regards to PvP gear, PvP should be an equal ground as far as gear goes if it wants to be competitive, so the change is good, T1->T2 is a huge difference in damage at least for melees.

Well if you can beat 100% sure cause I dont see how anyone could not have beaten ICC, at least on normal mode, especially with the buff, which you dont get in LFR. Kingslayer was just as easy to get as Jenkins.

Only 20% of tracked 25 man raiding guilds killed LK 25 on normal mode before 4.0. Only a minority of tracked guilds killed LK 10 on normal mode before 4.0 (and most of those had ICC 25 gear, and the 30% buff.)

For all the disparagement of Wrath as too easy, it was still too hard to finish for most of the people who raided in it, never mind most of the people who played it.

"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"Almost every time I have gotten to know a critic personally, they keep up with the criticism but lose the venom." -- Ghostcrawler
I hate these casual Fridays ruining it for real Fridays.

Cata is so much more casual than WotLK. For starters, you are correct, LK heroics were more difficult as a fresh 80 than MoP heroics are for fresh 90s. People only seem to remember the 15 min AoE zerg fests. People forget the complaining about Oculus, Loken, the gauntlet in Old Strath, the mind control phase in Ahn'kahet, and many others that were group killers at first. Second, My alts rarely set foot in raids except for the weekly raid quest or some later tier PuGs. In MoP all 9 of my 90s have cleared LFR and have at least 2 Tier pieces and can be brought in as a pick me up for normals if needed. Not to mention I had the time to get them up there. And lastly, you can log in for less than an hour get your dailies, run LFR, do you dungeon and scenario and log if you wanted.

---------- Post added 2013-01-20 at 11:53 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Servasus

There is no denying the normal mode raiding is less accessible by random server pugs now in MoP than it was in WotLK. Groups of 10 random shitheads could get together and clear half of ICC (even if it took them hours to do it) with relatively no problem, but I don't see any random pugs on many servers going in and clearing even past Elegon Normal in this tier.

The normal modes aren't terribly challenging, but they are definitely more "hardcore" than WotLK's normal modes were.

LFR is basically the old LK normal modes, and the current normal modes are in a weird place between ICC Normal and Heroic, with hardmodes being designed to deliver exactly what they advertise. Hard modes.

10 man raiding in WotLK is just a step above LFR. The only thing different is you had to pay attention to all the mechanics. 10s were easy mode. The difference now is LFR is for the casuals, the people who do not have tome to dedicate to raiding, the people who don't raid but want to see the story progress, and the PuGgers. Thar mixed in with normals being tougher have stopped some groups from clearing the content as fast so they are not free to run PuGs.

---------- Post added 2013-01-20 at 11:55 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Nerraw

Good thing the expansion isn't over yet.

yup cannot wait to see Thunder King heroic and Ra-Den. Considering the mechanics so far for the first tier I am willing to bet those two heroic encounters will be more difficult than yogg0.

---------- Post added 2013-01-20 at 11:58 PM ----------

Originally Posted by MasterHamster

Yup, it's more casual.

Casual in the sense that MoP isn't telling non-raiders to f off as soon as they got 463 blues.

So what did you do before? Cause you have plenty of avenues to get more gear and to progress story with out raiding. You have LFR(which is just a 25 man heroic dungeon for how easy and quick they are), dailies especially in 5.2 with the story there, pet battles, rare hunting, rare pet hunting, relic hunting, scenarios, heroics, achievements, and the rest of the usual's.

---------- Post added 2013-01-21 at 12:00 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Nerraw

How far into the patch did you reach that point? 3.3 went on for a while to put it mildly.

Unless he is on Stormrage, I am willing to bet it was as RS came out or later, or the PuG was his guild and another that teamed up to do 25s.

---------- Post added 2013-01-21 at 12:03 AM ----------

Originally Posted by lazymangaka

This change is to address a very real issue. No matter how skilled a player is, if they picked up PVP partway through a season they were were never going to catch up. PVP is more fun when people are on a more equal playing field. You do want a fair fight, don't you? Because someone who only wants to fight someone who's weaker than them is simultaneously a huge scrub and the Biggest Douche in the Universe™.

Epic gear ranges from ilvl 470-ish all the way to 500+. That's a big difference in gear, and it ultimately serves to differentiate people with "entry level" endgame gear from "hardcore" endgame gear. Any gear before that exists only for the purpose of getting into endgame raiding/pvp. Everyone gets purples, but the hurrdcore among us get to stroke their e-peen and enjoy their larger number.

Accessible ≠ Casual.

On the PvP thing it will take 10+ weeks if the average"LegolassXXXWTFXXX" if capping conquest weekly to reach the 27000 needed to buy. Chances those people will not be capping the full amount weekly.

---------- Post added 2013-01-21 at 12:05 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Osmeric

Only 20% of tracked 25 man raiding guilds killed LK 25 on normal mode before 4.0. Only a minority of tracked guilds killed LK 10 on normal mode before 4.0 (and most of those had ICC 25 gear, and the 30% buff.)

For all the disparagement of Wrath as too easy, it was still too hard to finish for most of the people who raided in it, never mind most of the people who played it.

Also do not forget the first 10/25m recorded H Arthas kills came the day the 5% Buff was added and the a few days later.

I disagree. Content nerfs itself over time as new expansions/raid tiers are released; if you can't down the raid content when it was current then too bad. Easy mode cheapens the experience of downing a raid boss. In my opinion, the vanilla/bc style of raiding was the best...as long as there is the first raid tier of an expansion that remains relatively accessible (Karazhan, etc).

Mid/end Cata and MoP were far more casual friendly than Wolk; even Firelands raid tier had a number of epics you could get from farming trash/gaining rep from farming trash; at least ICC only had one rep epic (the ring).

Last edited by Celista; 2013-01-21 at 12:37 AM.

Originally Posted by Paul - Thrall

The ignorance on this thread gave me cancer. At least I have insurance. Thanks, Obama!

What aspect of the xpac you are talking about? If it's raiding then I would say MoP offer more options. In WotLK, normal mode was just too easy. MoP has LFR so normal mode has decent difficulty. Normal raids in WotLK were such a joke that my guild which is not hardcore but not bad too doesn't feel any good completing it.

Unless he is on Stormrage, I am willing to bet it was as RS came out or later, or the PuG was his guild and another that teamed up to do 25s.

Pretty sure most of the big servers are pugging heroic modes now of Vaults and maybe HOF. Servers like Illidan, Mal'ganis, Sargeras, Stormragge has a huge pool of players and thus it shouldn't be surprising that they have a lots of pugs that can do better than most of the normal guilds on mid-range server. Even with the 30% buff, my server struggled to do Heroic modes in ICC. There was 4-5 bosses that were doable and the rest were not. And most time, those pugs ended after 1-2 tries on Lich King normal. Even with 30%, it only took 1 person to screw up defile and that was it.

So I can see why people on the super servers thinks everything is easy, while the rest of us are scratching our heads on why they think it's so easy. Hell, most of the time when my servers says MSV pug, they mean the first 4 bosses. Elegon normally kills a full clear.

I think Wrath felt more Casual or I would say Pug Friendly. I've ran a ton more Pugs of Naxx, Ulduar, ToC and ICC. Than I have any of the current content. Even in Cata, there weren't nearly as many PUGs going as Wrath had. But that's just my little server, which does seem to be switching to more "LFR is good enough" minded raiders

I disagree. Content nerfs itself over time as new expansions/raid tiers are released; if you can't down the raid content when it was current then too bad. Easy mode cheapens the experience of downing a raid boss. In my opinion, the vanilla/bc style of raiding was the best...as long as there is the first raid tier of an expansion that remains relatively accessible (Karazhan, etc).

You have the typical hardcore myopia, or are just so self-centered that the play experience of the great majority of players means nothing to you. In your scheme, the great majority would have their experience of downing a boss cheapened into nonexistence as they would not be able to down most bosses at all.

Blizzard tried your approach in early Cataclysm. It doesn't work. It never worked. And they (and other game designers) will never try it again. It just doesn't make any sense, and the non-hardcores just won't put up with it. We showed Blizzard during Cataclysm that we're willing to walk out the door if people like you become their center of attention.

"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"Almost every time I have gotten to know a critic personally, they keep up with the criticism but lose the venom." -- Ghostcrawler
I hate these casual Fridays ruining it for real Fridays.

You have the typical hardcore myopia, or are just so self-centered that the play experience of the great majority of players means nothing to you. In your scheme, the great majority would have their experience of downing a boss cheapened into nonexistence as they would not be able to down most bosses at all.

Blizzard tried your approach in early Cataclysm. It doesn't work. It never worked. And they (and other game designers) will never try it again. It just doesn't make any sense, and the non-hardcores just won't put up with it. We showed Blizzard during Cataclysm that we're willing to walk out the door if people like you become their center of attention.

You made a lot of assumptions regarding my post.

For one, I am not viewing things through a "hardcore" mentality. I do however remember what it was like to raid with one raid difficulty, and making raids more "accessible" such as in LFR difficulty just cheapens the experience, that euphoria of killing a particular raid boss. I'll never forget how I felt when we downed Illidan. I believe all players should experience that feeling of accomplishment, it is just not possible to experience by watering down a raid so that it is "accessible".

All players can down raid content eventually. It might be a tier later, or an expansion later, but everyone should be able to do it. Again, raids nerf themselves over time as ilvl increases over the course of an xpac/level cap increases from expansion to expansion.

If Blizzard DID bring back one raid difficulty, it doesn't need to be uber hardcore either, that is another assumption.

Blizzard didn't try this approach during early Cata, as we still had normal mode and hard mode and 10 man mechanics were actually much tighter than 25 man (10 mans being where the majority of casual players lie, and opposed to the rest of the xpac, where 25 man became more difficult than 10, except for late DS due to the buff).

Also other game designers continue to use the one tiered model and I am sure they will do it again.

Originally Posted by Paul - Thrall

The ignorance on this thread gave me cancer. At least I have insurance. Thanks, Obama!

All players can down raid content eventually. It might be a tier later, or an expansion later, but everyone should be able to do it. Again, raids nerf themselves over time as ilvl increases over the course of an xpac/level cap increases from expansion to expansion.
.

Maybe once upon a time that was true. But no way you can expect anyone to believe that a large chunk of people would be happy downing Deathwing today, (assuming Heroic mode was the only mode available). There is absolutely no joy in downing a boss an expansion later, especially with the stat infaltion between Xpacs.

At least on my crappy server, very few went back and even tried heroic Ragnaros when DS was out and other than mount farming, no one went back for an Epic kill at the start of this xpac. Gamers have changed. The hardcore table top nerds may not be gone, but they no longer rule the roost. The casual player no longer is happy just leveling alts. WoW has continued to survive, because it's evolved to satisfy as many players as it can. No one group may be perfectly happy, but obviously there are enough players that are happy enough

Maybe once upon a time that was true. But no way you can expect anyone to believe that a large chunk of people would be happy downing Deathwing today, (assuming Heroic mode was the only mode available). There is absolutely no joy in downing a boss an expansion later, especially with the stat infaltion between Xpacs.

At least on my crappy server, very few went back and even tried heroic Ragnaros when DS was out and other than mount farming, no one went back for an Epic kill at the start of this xpac. Gamers have changed. The hardcore table top nerds may not be gone, but they no longer rule the roost. The casual player no longer is happy just leveling alts. WoW has continued to survive, because it's evolved to satisfy as many players as it can. No one group may be perfectly happy, but obviously there are enough players that are happy enough

Honestly all of this is kindof a moot point because WoW will likely never go back to that model. However there is a lot of stuff that casual players can do besides alt leveling and I think that is where the game has really improved. Achievement farming rep farming transmog pet battles mount farming...even random battleground pvp because it really takes so much less time to gear up than pve...

Openraid has really helped with going back to experience old content, I highly recommend the site for every type of player.

Also I know very many people who were new/older casual players who were very very happy to kill LK during Cata, our server had a ton of ICC 25 groups going for the mount and for the achieves.

Again, we are probably never going to see this raid model again in wow. It affects me because it is expected of me as a raider to run LFR for gear upgrades as we progress through normal mode content at the beginning of a tier, and I don't get any sense of enjoyment killing a raid boss in LFR in the first week or two of an expansion. However I am in a guild that is clearing normal mode content and is on to HMs before LFR is even released so I am still stuck in the position of downing stuff within the first week or so, which I am not a fan of but what can you do....

Ultimately what we can all agree on is that the nature of raiding has changed and there really is no going back, for good or for bad.

Originally Posted by Paul - Thrall

The ignorance on this thread gave me cancer. At least I have insurance. Thanks, Obama!